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Part LII (1193-1200)
Year 1193
======================
Time to fix the mess that occurred at the end of last part. Not sure, if we will make it in time (before peasant rebels enforce demands on our vassal rebels) yet we will try. Meanwhile - some courtier cleanup takes place - decided to sack all old Jewish courtiers. Those 50+ old characters that we didn't convert in time, will no longer be usable for us. Instead of wasting any instance of courtier conversion in capital on them I would rather our Patriarch rolls on one of younger characters. So I invite 5 new 30+ old Askhenazi characters generated from events within our diplomatic range. I also arrange more of marriages between our mayor vassals, so you know... More of the usual. Spot another city vassal that despite having his capital in our capital duchy somehow drifted away to different duke. Not sure why this happens. In previous part I had a thesis that it happens, if more than 1 city holding is within other duchy de jure borders. But this second occurance doesn't follows that pattern so I'm no longer too sure of that. Well will have to finally revoke it the next chance we get. But that's in the future as we still have previous tyranny penalty for 2 more years. Have to wait till this times out or we just not only prolong the opinion penalty - we actively add to it (currently -45).
On 6th of January our Nenetsian vassals decides to create new title - kingdom of Vladimir. It is not exactly to our liking as he is still under gavelkind and we are trying to give him independence thus we are revoking back and forth titles to make for clean cut since 100 years ago. Not only does it costs me nerves but also - money that we could get, if we instead kept revoking vassals (bishops especially). Well at the moment he has only single son so it isn't so bad. But you know it, I know it, everyone knows it. He will get several sons more and it will devolve into another border gore.
We get another conversion (some female courtier) as more of our Jewish "administrators to be" arrive. With that 6 out of 10 possible targets within our capital are characters we just invited. Those are pretty acceptable odds if I say so myself. Some nomads arrive to pay us a pillaging visit (how very nice of them <3) in Western Sayan (east of Cumania). So our 3.000 strong Pike retinues from Silkroad is called into action.
By March our 12.000+ levies from Perm are assembled in Qazan and start marching with 15 Martial Organizer commander (+35% Movement Speed) towards Mari rebels that completely took over Mari county (including our direct vassals baronies that were not part of rebelion). I'm not sure they will make it but we have to try anyway. Soon another family focus event fires - we once again improve our relations with Empress Zaynab. Sadly it still doesn't provide us with lifestyle modifier. To my suprise garrison of castle in Hlynov holds suprisingly well (they didn't raise their levies to help their overlord in rebelion) - rebels don't manage to take even a 10% of siege progress before our late relief arrives.
We assign what few commanders we currently have but we are still lacking in this department. We also suffer River crossing penalty. Finger Crossed!
Battle starts somewhat poorly for us as enemy center counters our harass with volley (+200% dmg). That's not enough and suprisingly with our not that big advantage in numbers we actually win the skirmish phase, suffering far less damage that one would expect. Then once we enter melee the day is ours. We lose over 1.200 men but claim 5.800 enemy heads. We also take over what little siege progress there was. After that I split my levies into two and march the other half to Mari county to recapture rebel holdings. Meanwhile one of our previously beaten down retinues continued working on Kerzhenets and are about to take over rebel castle. Just as one battle ended, other began on the other side of Permo-Siberian empire. Our retinues catched 2.000 raiding nomadic host. One of enemies wings secured narrow flanks but our Scottish commander wisely dealt with other army segment first. He even rolled Schiltrom formation rapidly destroying enemies in melee dealing over 350 casualties per day. Then we get way worse result due to enemy narrow flank but finally grind out a victory with 306 casualties in exchange for 769 enemies fertilizing our lands.
As battles raged, we get one Jew converted. Also Monothelite heresy breaks out in Vologda which is somewhat unlucky given that we are still on 100% Moral Authority. Well our vassals will have to deal with it. Our Apprentice from Hermetic society offers us to try a hand at summoning divine being and we gladly spent one of our ingredients on that (Hibiscus). To my suprise 4 ingredients get removed at once =.=. Well they were kind of bugged out as we had way too many but still. Our Bishop from Udmurts also dies and thus we get 3/2 non-Monastic replacement.
On 19th of July second son is born to Emperor Turush - Prince Aymort. He is Genius! So this is really nice development, meaning we only need to disinherit one child to let him take over. Any more kids at this point are extra for either military alliances or becoming skilled in stewardship bishops. Remembering about tip learned in this AAR topic I curiously check the birthdates. All the kids are born on 19th. So they all have the same father. But the first child (Princess Sernyava) was Bastard. So either we are getting cuckolded all the time or the first time it was a result of some special event (that left our daughter without father in character window). Finger crossed we do not lose Prince Aymort to the same event, as his older brother was safe from it. We also decide to make a Horoscope to not miss the opportunity for extra stats on our next character.
Well finally. The modifier I was waiting for. Together with confindent seer we are looking at +3 to all attributes from Hermetic Society.
At long last we got critical success in summoning event. Meaning +2 to all stats. Not that we are particularly hurting for attributes at the moment as we have all the necessary values but it is still nice. This will also persist for another 10 years. Horoscope turns somewhat less stellar - Aymort rolls diplomacy fate. Well we encourage it anyway as after my previous study of that event in game files I see no reason not too (you are not penalized for choosing different education so those are just free stats anyway and if you match the education focus you might get extra education upgrage). Another bishop also bites the dust- this time in Pilva. So our Monastic administration is further undone.
In August we sent our recently converted courtier to become monk. He settles in Samara which is unexpected for me as I don't remember tinkering with any Bolghar duchy bishopric myself. It is also useless as Bishop there is 9 years younger and already pretty skilled (19 stewardship). Thanks game - it was pointless. Growing more dissapointed with how that idea turns out - 80% of our candidates ends in Perm for some reason thus we not only are not able to progress but are making back progress with multi-bishops. Soon after that we conclude Cheremisian rebelion. Titles are secured (duchy+county), rebel is forced to take vows and we destroy Cheremisia duchy. In newly acquired county we appoint 19 martial courtier from one of our vassal courts. This will somehow improve our potential army size. Want to point out there are more and more reasons for wanting to keep single county vassals as you play tall - each of them gets capital county bonus to levies and uses his martial to further increase levy numbers. So with that we get those bonuses on almost every county within our not too big empire. Not to mention we additionally have way more courts generating Komi Orthodox characters to poach for ourself when in need of skilled character for some low cost (~100 gold).
September marks the end of other extraction war - title of Mari duchy is thus destroyed and new high martial count is seeded there afterwards. This leaves us with just Dukes of Qazan and Ural to dismantle, Duke of Zyriane not needing dismantling and Komi/Veliky Ustug being something we might but don't have to do. There is Duke of Tobol that somehow is holding both county of Bolgharia as vassal and single county in Cheremisia (and also is thus hating us as he desired some titles we hold - for example Duchy of Bolgharia). This will conclude western part of Realm (Kingdom of Perm and Volga-Bolgharia), after which we will have to start working east of Ural mountains (where there is much more consolidation to break apart but at least they can generate technology points for now).
We finally can disband levies and save on paying them (over 50g per month). We are still hurting from all the retinue trashing presented to us by rebels (over 1.000 a year and it will take us quite some time before high reinforcements costs will be waved off). Seeing as one of my vassals declares war for gavelkind on his overlord I'm perplexed. Isn't it blocked by external vassal wars? I check and realise that most of my kingdom titles have it not banned (despite us clicking it on Empire). Maybe that's the issue? After clicking it on our primary kingdom title it automatically is applied to both Kingdom of Siberia and Cumania. That should help I hope.
October presents itself with opportunity to improve prosperity in Turgay for almost 400g. I skip on it. This reminds me - our big Nenetsian ally is big enough to be able to access prosperity mechanic and thus he is working his crown focus in Nenetsia. Curious how it will turn out in the long term as I have no clue how well AI uses it. After scanning whole map I spot just 1 county in India that managed to get prosperity province modifier. Not sure if they are lost upon change of owner though. On topic of our favourite pink vassal - he is losing against Jomsvikings. Fret not - they just suffered huge Cathar Finnish rebelion for independence of Suomi with over 24.000 troops
".Which will definetely shake things a lot as both currently warring sides have only around 7.000 troops.Being the "CK2 Gamer" that I'm am - for once I remember to slow down before 1st of November. Which means we are making 2 feasts this season. Pause allows to micromanage all the kids in the court. Our Scottish program is coming nicely - we have like 2 Scottish/Orthodox teenagers and 4 more young children being in the process of converting. With them I will have easier time creating more dedicated commanders as we no longer will be limited in lowborn marriage options (meaning Scottish/Orthodox from get go). Screwed once though and ended with Orthodox/Georgian but as he is from Byzantine culture group he should have access to their unique cavalry tactic. From what I remember it is no good on Greeks retinues but maybe it will be just fine with mercenary only cavalry force? Will have to check it as we might still make use of that.
Before end of year we land another conversion but this time it is one of our last Sunni Muhallabids. As I was checking on them I realised that the one Muhallabid rival we had and sent away, after ending within Khazar Company (which was closest Sunni realm to Perm) ended up as their next captain. Then he reconverted to Sunni and I think right now he might be eligible for Decadent trait (as he is Cruel, Greedy but also Just and Temperate level 2 diplomatic education focus). He was the oldest of 3 brothers with middle one having 6 children and youngest one being childless (he was the one we just converted). As first feast ends on 30th of December game is paused and another feast is issued. Spotted that we have Smallpox outbreak in Burtasy. Where there is no Hospital - oops! While we don't have crown focus there it would be a pity to lose level 3 prosperity. It also cuts down on income from holdings (-25%).
Year 1194
======================
We enter 1194 with almost 25.000 gold coins, +3.493 income but -843 yearly expense (retinues). As you see with few more bishops dieing and some city vassals mysteriously changing suzerains our annual income took a hit. We are still 2 years away from being able to invoke tyranny again so we will have to do with what we have right now. On other hand most of our previous constructions finally ended. With that most of our directly owned Castles have that Barrack V building. Now it is time to push upgrades on our Cultural buildings - Warrior Gathering Grounds.
Another round of buildings consumes almost 2,000 gold at once. But we really will benefit from extra toughness on Melee Infantry.
After initial purchase I decided to splurge on more universities (around 700+ gold per building) and more Monastic Schools (100+ gold per building). Sometimes even level 2 roads in cities are started. Was happily clicking away but halfway through our eastern lands I came dangerously close to not being able to afford next prosperity event. Ended on 10.500 gold coins remaining. Talk about huge infrastructural projects. Still think that getting those improving technology spread buildings sooner is the right move. We probably feudalised way too late to be thinking about maxing technology in every single county within borders but we will still try. On the plus side spotted that almost all of our vassals Stewards are furiously helping via researching economic technology, which means that every vassal provides between +30% and +90% technology spread speed to at least 1 county. Which is great as we have quite a few counties with just Castles (no help) or Temples (minimal help). Each 8 Stewardship council member on tech job is basically worth 1 level of University and costs us much less. Right now I plan to further invest in technology with Hospitals. Not only will they secure our prosperity levels but thanks to higher disease resistance we might also avoid more penalties to province income. As we prioritised Construction technology first we have it quite well spread already. So it will give us access to two additional +25% technology spread buildings that are not tied to holding slots, which will make huge impact on counties with few/none holding slots. That will have to wait till we deal with Mongols first though.
Week ago during some free time I mapped the technology spread within empire to give you better insight on how much my university/monastic school funding helps. Doesn't include Councillor bonuses. Personal demense shares access to technology within having to be adjecent.
By March we finish another feast but also lose one Mayor vassal with no people ready to replace him. We really need our Patriarch to start hitting our Jewish court members with those conversion. Then we get option to refresh our Trade route modifier in Kudymkar. Luckily it scales up to only 200g cost. Then it is no-brainer decision as each year that bonus (+30% income) provides us more than 27g a year from 3 cities alone. Should also last 10-20 years. Upon checking I get a suprise. Either it didn't update or updated incorrectly as new expiration timer shows 1196 (just 2 more years). Will have to monitor if it vanishes according to tooltip (should be another 10-20 or 30 years from what I remember and definetely not 2 extra years). So it might turn out we got scammed afterall.
With start of May we organize Summer Fair (another +6 prosperity points to capital in Tynea). We also get notification that someone is trying to murder our wife. We do not known about that plot and lately there was also plot against our daughter. Despite our Spymaster being here we know nothing. So I send him into Thrace to improve technology spread in Tynea. We also reassign Marshal to train troops there. Halfway through the May Emperor Turush loses content trait. This is nice - we go down to just 5 traits leaving us some breathing room. Nothing of substance was lost with content trait too. Now we have emergency room for Proud that can happen from Family focus, keeping our Diligent trait safe. Smallpox does spread to most of southern Volga-Bolgharia. On other hand retinue cost decrease to just around 170g per year.
Another Mayor dies in July but this time he is replaced with superior specifem - Quick + ambitious which results in 16 stewardship governor. All we ever wanted thus we can just marry him to some less skilled female courtier to keep the available targets in the future. But we run out of lowborns women thus I invite 7 more. All of them have rather high stewardship (13+) so this will help.
In August epidemy of Measles breaks out in Perm and Kolva. Most unfortunate - but at the very least the penalty to income is just 10%. Then we finally get our conversion thus we can start working on replacing single "over the limit" Mayors. Sadly Measle spreads throughout our capital duchy. We do remember to slow down to not miss the timing on starting the Feast on 1st of November.
Soon our assasination succeds but we have to start another till we generate some mayor with at least 12 stewardship. Then we can marry him to our lowborn courtier with 17 stewardship and it should be fixed. Luckily as Measle avoided our capital in Tynea we soon get information that it reached final level of prosperity. Meaning we can soon stop with Feasts and Fairs.
During feast Emperor Turush get's stressed. We can't brew Eudaimonia potion as we only have 1 ingredient (and it requires us to have at least 2). So now we can be really angry at game previously taking 4 ingredients at once even though we only opted to use 2 :/. It doesn't mess our attributes and we will survive that -1 health thanks to Family focus (+1 health), Pet Owl (+1 health) and Holy Prepuce (+0.5 health).
Year 1195
======================
Year starts with 11.451 gold in imperial treasury and just +3.402 annual income. At least our expenses went down to 186g. If you wonder why our gold is lower than expected - kept building as some counties finished their construction. Our main demense is still waiting on places with slowest construction speed to catch up. Also those 2 epidemics kind of hurt us.
Another assasination succeeds but we still don't get viable candidate. We can hold Grand Debate as the cooldown ended but I don't think there is much point to doing it. Instead we invite our Duke Malyaka of Kazakh (also member of Hermetic society) to stargazing as we just went off the cooldown from previous time. Soon we get option to impress him by utilizing previously purchased observatory equipment (decision to pick Hermetic Art). It works and he is impressed.
By end of April our Empress once again becomes pregnant. Our Paranoid ruler once again doubts himself. Let him be. Our Nenetsian vassal suffers first rebelion after failing in his Holy War against Jomsvikings. He also sired himself spare son to his heir (but he is on gavelkind). Ohh and we are now adjecent to newly established Cathar Finnish Kingdom of Suomi. Which fields impressive 45.000 troops (event troops inherited from rebelion).
With May we send some spies after our wife, keep assasinating barons and completely fail our stargazing. Well that's 2 out of 2 failed attempts to generate any technology points. We also have to issue another Chinese Scholar-Bureaucrat as previous died. It is immedietely remedied as we still have 15.000 grace. Our retinues reach full size thus we play minimal retinue upkeep (169). So finally somewhat recovered from ordeals befalling Permo-Siberia since previous AAR part. We also grant fresh Heretic Finnish King a Orthodox courtier as wife - maybe he will convert as he isn't Zealous. Would help us somewhat and given low Cathar MA (4%) it isn't impossible.
Family keeps on giving. Thus our Homosexual character has now Lover from opposite gender. Unlike inviting to stargaze.
Finally as we enter second half of year we revoke more titles without fearing consequences. We start with some bishops. While remembering this is a scrying opportunity. We get it twice but it seems it doesn't stack when it comes to duration. Still we fix at least one bishop. After second title revoked there is interesting decision to be made - I can let our bishop hold last temple and instead focus on revoking something else. But we will fall even further behind managing temple administration. He also is not exactly fond of us after depraving him of 2 holdings. So I roll to the end. Then I decide to revoke back barons that drifted away under different vassals. Then I start micromanaging 2 multi city vassals that we retrieved as they both are over the holding limit, sadly we still keep missing good mayors in previous target city. Right now we went from 7 stewardship to 0 stewardship character there. As we already maxed prosperity in Tynea there is little reason to keep our Marshal on training troops there is it? So we move him to Organise army again to improve our commanders and lower retinues upkeepk (down to 79g per year).
We get another occasion to de-age our character with Fountain of Youth. Most likely won't do this. Emperor Turush is 43 years old, while his favourite son is 2 years old. We totally can perfectly transition from one character into another. There are some downsides to this. We might lose truce timer with Mongols due to timing and if we lose initial war it might result in losing up to half of our Empire in quick succession.
Towards Autumn most of Smallpox vanishes. Our Empress gives birth to another Prince (Rayda) that is sickly. Our Court Physician is put to work. Before he can resolve the situation we get one of hospital events that demands us to pay 1.480 gold coins or. risk.. Our Court Physician get's slightly upset for next 5 years (-15). I will survive his tantrum - not paying so much for opinion ^^"..
Our Stubborn emperor is on the roll with siring children. We won't be lacking in options
Year 1196
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With last year revocations my Permo-Siberian income surged up to +3.702g per year (and only 79g yearly expenses!). We splurge on few more Universities II in Siberia and Cumania and order a set of Castle Fortifications III acros duchy of Perm. It costs a little, increases our fort levels (securing more province wealth in case of raiding) and well is something for those holdings to build in the meantime. It drops us below 10.000 gold mark (we end up on 9.981g).
During February our Chinese Master-Engineer dies. We order another one from China and instantly force him to convert (to not waste our Patriarch conversions). Measle still haunts Perm but it didn't affect prosperity on the first glance. We still retain prosperity levels we had with just Minor protection from depopulation (level 2 hospitals).
Takes up to May for something to happen. Emperor starts writing new Theorem paper, then finally can embark on another ingredient gathering (which will enable us to get rid of Stressed) and Turush's loving wife becomes pregnant again. Well even with stressed and not getting "Family Man/Patriarch" we are still rocking +35% Fertility. High relations with spouse and especially lover gives even more. Soon she starts getting pregnancy cravings so we get event in which we pick gluttonous option cause each other might result in genetical defect to offspring. It also costs us around 170g but it is worth it.
Soon we get 3 more ingredients so we quickly brew "happy" potion, which without a fail cures Stressed. At this point we can change focus again. Not sure if there is a need. Extra health somewhat works as a backup and we are happy with Emperor's attributes, traits and education. Getting more dynasty members with all bloodlines also seems crucial and that +25% fertility surely will help achieve that. There are some options. Business may give me a chance at another trade route but not much else. Yea we can get some modifiers here and there but +2 Stewardship from lifestyle modifier ain't much. Rulership is similar - we don't really need Ambitious and Just. We have diligent. So the same +2 Stewardship is the main gain. On top of low chance of events probably helping. Learning might let us build Observatory for Stargazing bonuses but that's about that. We don't want most of traits that this event chain can give. Don't need Necronomicon either. Better chance at getting technology points isn't bad. Theology seems worse as we don't need to get rid of Lustful and don't need Zealous + Temperate. Both Learning focuses will help with "Summon the Divine being" event from Hermetic society in the future though (by making it more likely to happen). Martial focuses are not exactly bad. Well mostly War is not bad as it would allow us to start working on future commanders for coming wars. We do take some risk as we can get Wroth and/or Brave and injure some courtiers. But rolling for desired tactics and then giving them to our Scottish commanders is tempting. Hunting on other hand seems counter intuitivie as I just decided to not prolong this ruler life too much. Seduction we already were on and got everything we wanted. Which leaves Scheming and Carousing. Both could help us with adjusting vassals. Scheming opens up options for inheriting some gold but I think that the current pending case of courtiers with our mercenary band gold can be resolved without it. Carousing seems really great for me. We can start befriending vassals (especially our city vassals) one by one and then utilize tyranny a little more, as with +100 opinion from being friends we have more room to manouver without it affecting our vassal tax. It's really close but I will remain on Family for now. Carousing seems like good plan for long reign that seems to be materializing on our next ruler.
We have another sickness outbreak in Novgorod. This time it is Consumption and we hope it never reaches us. At least Measle was finally contained. We raise our levies and start thinking about weakening our vassals somewhat more.
Somewhat reluctant to put much work with Mongols on the horizon yet it might help against them. With just 20 years remaining we might now do the same we did in Syria - appoint high Martial Counts to boost levy bonuses from counties.
Starting with Duke of Tobol that holds 2 counties on western side of Ural mountains. I plan to keep extracting his vassal (thanks Imperial Bureaucracy) one by one as this method antogonizes just single vassal. As we wait for levies to assemble in November, one of two over the demense super burghers dies thus our handpicked candidate takes over. We still have to kill the other one (so far we failed twice in killing him). But for now to my suprise Duke Tobol gives away all of his vassals. Well that went unexptectedly nice. He still is excommunicated so we will antagonize him anyway but now we have far less rebels to deal with.
So we just wait for our armies to move. Whenever new child arrives in our court we sent him immedietely to "Become Scottish" education camp. Right now 8 such kids are in the making. Which should be enough to at least produce one or two viable commanders to utilize. Oh and another son to Imperial couple is born:
I might not use all of them as Bishops. We can make some bethrothals to take over whole vassal duchies. I spot one such occasion in Zyriane duchy (Perm). As our prestige is high enough it allows us to directly marry into taking over those lands. So we start seeding our spare bloodline holders.
Year 1197
======================
With over 13.000 gold coins, we have +3.718 gold coins of income but -871g of expenses (levies raised). One thing I forgot to take into consideration was - weather. Thus we began our extraction war perfectly in severe winter =3". Well but Duke of Tobol is already rising up his armies so no choice but to continue. We at least can move onto rebel county in Cheremisia with retinues from Burtasy unopposed.
In February our Emperor becomes the target of seduction attempt of one of our vassals. We let him know it will never happen. Right now the last thing we need is another scandal to push negative opinion of Emperor over the edge. This will help with female courtiers opinion of Turush as "Rejecting sexual advances" modifier works on them. Not sure what good it does to us despite more plotters but hey - it's the little things that count. Still after 5 attempts we could not kill that 6 intrigue mayor despite having 700%+ plot power @.@. We do keep retracting vassals but after a while we slow down. Then we get a chance of getting Charitable trait from "Emaluating Saint Varaka event". We give it a pass - not really too keen on having another Saint (and we would need to get rid of Lustful for that) so I would rather have some room for emergency trait.
With start of April our rebel ex-vassal suprises me as he callsto arms Duke of Veliky Ustug, that we also started weakening in preparation for his own "adjustment". Well don't mind if I do! We can easily deal with him and we wanted to revoke from him anyway.
Answering that call to war wasn't wise but they don't know that they were doomed anyway. Didn't retract all the Veliky-Ustug vassal though. Also sweet melee countering in battle.
We sacrifice some of 2.000 retinues to force a battle with main enemy army, thus our main force can enter into melee. Luckily one of our wings counters their center tactics and thus deals unholy 2506 casualties in single day 8D. We lose 600 troops (including sacrificial army) but kill over 4.700. More importantly on our 9th attempt we finally get rid of old Mayor Yirkap of Kumay and our candidate takes over. My dear God it took way longer that I expected!
In the mid of Summer Vologda converts back to Orthodoxy from heresy it was afflicted with. Job well done by our vassals. Our war progress goes toward +57% as we march to take over last few holdings in Tobol duchy. Not sure if it will be enough. Precautiously I moved my main retinue stack from Perm towards Veliky Ustug and we started besieging 2 holdings belonging to rebel Duke there. Hope for being able to force them into surrender soon.
After taking over 3 Tobol counties and one Veliky-Ustug castle we just need single skirmish with remnants of previous rebel army to go from 97% to 100% warscore. Thus before Autumn we conclude first war, revoke as many things as we can and then embark on second such escapade. Soon both duchy titles get destroyed as we try to get rid of last holdings in possession of previous rebels.
Then till the end of year we fight rebels but not without some hiccups. Administrative hiccups - as I revoke second holding from vassal that answered call to war I realise too late that it is with tyranny. So this way I increase my tyranny malus from -45 to -60. Yikes! Enemy holdings still constantly fold under pressure from our armies and quickly warscore climbs to 69%. Precautiously I give out some bribes. Also our Pet Owl dies and we lose that extra +Learning/health modifier.
It was something AI Turush procured for himself via Hermetic scrying. Was nice but I think we can do without it.
Year 1198
======================
New year greets us with 15.300 gold coins, +3.732 annual income and 1.051 expenses. Unexpected depression due to potion of eudaimonia backfiring too. We will have to make another one to remedy this situation. As we sacrifice another 2 ingredients, our character notices that his wife is sick as well. Just a flu. But we order our court Physician to see to it. Soon treatment turns out to be succesful and our child making quest can continue.
Just as we finally clear Mayor in Tynea, another dies further north in Perm province. Well this time at least we can use one of 2 converted Jews for this, so it should be easier to remedy. One of them we assign to single city in Udmurts for replacement for local old mayor to be already in place.
Then I click through our realm and spent another 5.000 gold coins on Universities II. In one of Khanty counties we spot "stone quarry" modifier (from business focus), which is really nice as it saves even more gold. With that we are slowly beginning to run out of possible Universities to build. The final level of that building is locked behind final technology level, which is somewhat counter intuitive. It forces us to focus on "Cities and Temples" technology category first, if we want to use that final +30% technology spread. Otherwise we would not benefit much for that costly building unlocked quickly before end of game.
By Summer news from China arrive - Emperor changes again. Unlucky for us this is 5th in a row Expansionist China Ruler. Meaning we wasted our Mjollnir deal and weren't able to cash on that Invasion to shatter some realm in the Middle-East. Well... shame. We might need it, cause Syria starts suffering rebelions. Lost one small duchy to one, but the other one for Jerusalem is more of a problem - just look how much troops do they have:
Damn you China! Why won't you let me use you? Also daaamn my setting on rebellions is sometimes crazy. Underestimated that this could happen x].
This might be able to jeopardize our efforts but there is something good overall - Byzantine Empire is once again under Orthodox rule. Not fully (all Orthodox holy sites within their borders are under Catholics) but it is at least something. So even if Syria sinks, Byzantines should be able to expand into rebel realm. Still the religion situation within everyone favourite purple blob remains to be closely monitored as quite a few important vassals remain Catholic. Also Syrian Greeks managed to converts most of northern Syria to Orthodoxy, which with low Sunni Moral Authority will be difficult to convert back. Meaning that Orthodox Rebels might play Uno reverse card in the future.
Going back to more domestic matters I spot that we are able to invite widow of our ex-mercenary captain back to our court. Her next husband died so we can hasten the inheriting process somewhat. We already had his inheriting son in our court but we can invite to excommunicate and banish her. That would give us back our 21.000+ gold coins from centuries of Permian Band working.
Our assasinations finally succeed in fixing Cherdyn city (Perm county). Our superior Orthodox Ashkenazi character takes over and what a steward he is. With 26 Stewardship he reaches 55 State Stewardship meaning +110% Tax! Translates to roughly 120g income from single city despite it only having level 4 income building (basically quadrupling holding income). As just moments before spotting our previously mentioned rich widow I ordered excommunication on some vassal in eastern part of empire we can't proceed with extraction yet.
By October our mayor from Udmurts dies so we can start working on fixing that place. Will take more than single assasination because as people placed there were relatives of some khagan, they now refuse our marriage proposals. We also lose steward as he was the mayor that just died. We replace him with another vassal - Jewish burgher with 26 stewardship and sent him to continue researching economic technology in Irgiz.
Before end of year another mayor dies (this time in Kudymkar) and we have another issue to fix. Also small Bolghar nomads cross the border into Bolgharia to raid, loot around 24% of province wealth before Retinues from Burtasy catch them.
Year 1199
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Year starts with our retinues slowly trashing bolgharian raiders. We have exactly 13.000 gold in reserve, +3.974 annual income but 814 annual expenses. Will probably go even higher after the fight as we will need 1-2 months of replenishment. Our main retinue force did replenish from halfway to 5.000 out of 6.900 troops. With pace of recovering 170 men per month it will still take a little more than a year to reach full status.
By February we start preparations for operation "Mercenary funds": we order excommunication itself, set the marshal to help with arrest (+20% success chance) and await. Within few days Consumption breaks out in Bashkiria duchy (to the south of Ural). That's -40% income tax on those two counties. Our capital in Tynea is adjecent to it and has exactly 1% disease resistance (cause it is at highest prosperity). Let's see how it turns out.
Finally our rightfully earned money came back. This will make for good chunk of funds in fighting the nomads.
The only downside to whole extraction is that we lost -20% retinue upkeep cost modifier from Marshal's job for few months. Basically costing us 200g per month till end of July. Not the end of world but still somewhat substantial. Soon it drops to 768g a year as our retinues from Burtasy reach 100% manpower.
With May we get Orthodox exclusive event - an icon. We roll a diplomatic one for the first time. I'm not too keen on that offer - over 950g for +1 base diplomacy is somewhat expensive. We already sired children so that won't translate across generation and we are not wanting for diplomacy (19). Soon we get succesful assasination and send away our last Ashkenazi character. Time to invite more. One interesting thing is that we currently have 100% county religion conversion chance with our Permo-Siberian Patriarch despite Orthodoxy currently hovering around 85% MA. Yet our "Subject conversion chance" is only 90%. Rare case when I would want it the other way around.
Consumption spreads to Perm and Udmurts as well as 2 eastern counties in Bolgharia. Soon 4 out of 5 invited characters arrive and one of them gets instantly converted
. We also get 25 Stewardship French Catholic that converts after being bribed so we have 2 more targets to be converted. In August we provoke duke of Komi (more in name as he only has single county in Mari duchy) with our retinues from Burtasy already parked on top of his holding. Somehow what was consumption turned to camp fever and as I didn't seclude ours court we get punished for it. Our genius son (Prince Aymort) gets severe case of Camp Fever for total of -6 health. Soon our Court Physician offers Mild treatment (+1 health) and things suddenly loook alot worse.
Soon after in September our Court Tutor gets the same sickness but at least after shutting the gates Empress Zaynab is again pregnant. We get an update on Prince Aymort horoscope of stars favouring him and decide to leave it to the fate. Sickness kills quickly few courtiers including 5 out 8 children in Scottish class.
Sadly at at end of October our Genius Prince Aymort dies due to Camp Fever :/.
Nuuuuuuuuuu! Give me back my Genius heir!
Year 1200
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Last year for this part starts with us having 36.800 gold. Don't get too giddy though. As between epidemy and winter Perm gets -6 supplies thus our reinforcing there retinues have to evacuate. They can't do it in time and get cut down from 5.800 down to 3.570... DAMN! That's another year of reinforcing =.=.
Epidemy continues to ravage our court. Our Nenetsian King dies due to Camp Fever on 12th of March meaning his carefully stacked (by us) realm splits into two >.>. Some more Mayors die and we get up to 4 characters that need fixing. At the moment we can't progress as everyone is secluded which slows or stops entirely schemes.
On 19th of April 5th son to Emperor Turush is born. He is sickly and sadly not a genius. Well we will utilize him. For now he will be known as Prince Oshmar but maybe later he will become Prince-Bishop or something like that. Then week later Bishop Shypicha of Perm (brother of Emperor) dies and I realise that Camp Fever managed to completely obliterate all 5 Monastic characters there xD. RIP my monastic administration I suppose. We get another family event with our oldest child and only daughter. While I care little for +15 opinion for 20 years it finally gives us "Family Man" modifier granting us further +10% Fertility.
Having nothing better to do we make horoscope for youngest child (we roll diplomacy again) as our doctor somewhat helps him (doesn't remove sickly but gives him timely modifier). We also conclude Komi extraction thus can give back Duchy to one of vassals physically located in Komi and settle another high Martial vassal in Mari county itself. Camp Fever inflict Minor depopulation in Bashkiria. Luckily nothing as dreadful in our personal demense thanks to level 2 hospitals offering at the very least minor protection from depopulation (at this point I regret not pumping more into hospital levels instead of all the fancy adds). More concerning is that our ruler develops Rash... Oh boy!
More events arrive and this one is iffy. Our Steward reports to us some tunnels under the castle. Smells like assasination attempt. Yet this steward is quite new one, likes us a lot (74 opinion) and is paragon of virtues. We do investigate it and due to curiosity I do explore this event without stepping away. Might be very bad decision on my part. At the same time our symptoms develop into our own Camp Fever. Seems we might not live long anyway so let's check this event.
Curiosity takes better of me. In the end our Paranoid ruler simply had to known!
Despite my better judgment Emperor Turush fights off peasant rebels while suffering from camp fever. Quite a pity as I would love to use that female courtier to marry her to one of our vassals. Not sure what triggered this event as it was my first time seeing it. On other hand Camp Fever turns mild. We were really unlucky as out of 5 Turush children only our Genius son caught it and it seems he rolled 5% for worst outcome - Bedridden =.=. Might decide to use fountain of Youth because right now we might want to look for another Genius character to play as. There is chance oldest Prince (Arnaz) will become shrewd but time will tell. Or any of his brothers
To my suprise Toyaska 'The Silent" is still free within our court. Somehow we can't imprison her despite all that peasant attack us business. Maybe this event chain is still ongoing? Also the Cynical we got from it is our 6th trait so we are on the limit. Interestingely it can help us with turning Curious into Shrewd if we make tutored child Cynical first from other trait. To ensure that we would have to give up Diligent from intervention at 14.5 years of age by assigning 12+ Intrigue tutor instead. We have perfect test subject for that - Princess Sernyava (13 years old) once we give her from Court Tutor to Empress Zaynab (who meets the tutor requirement).
Well that will teach me to close the gates instantly in the future. Still we have aftermath to deal with.
Quickly before end of this part we also heal from Camp Fever meaning we are more likely to keep on living for now. Well previous good treatment definetely helped but that whole Typhus outbreak surely complicated our plans.
Ugh! Due to Camp Fever (-40% income in most of our personal demense) income really took a temporary hit...
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